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Our National Constitution 
as Related to National Growth 

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A CONSIDERATION OF 
CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE 
WAR WITH SPAIN 

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GEORGE WHARTON PEPPER 


UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 

UMM Beta Utappa Societp 


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Our National Constitution as 
Related to National Growth 

A CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN ASPECTS 
OF THE WAR WITH SPAIN 


GEORGE WHARTON PEPPER 

n 

Algernon Sydney Biddle Professor of Law 
in the 

University of Pennsylvania 


THE ANNUAL ADDRESS 

DELIVERED JUNE ,7, 1898, BEFORE 
DELTA CHAPTER OF PENNSYLVANIA 


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Press of 

George H Buchanan & Company 
Philadelphia 


Our National Constitution 
As Related to National Growth 

Centuries are arbitrary divisions in the stream of time, 
but by a coincidence it often happens that great national 
changes occur a century apart. As we take our stand in the 
closing days of the nineteenth century and look backward, we 
observe that a hundred years ago the forces were at work in 
England which brought about the extinction of personal gov¬ 
ernment and the enactment of such epoch-making measures 
as the Reform Bill. If we look back another hundred years 
in the history of the mother country, we may note the inter¬ 
esting succession of events which, following in the train of 
the Revolution of 1688, culminated in the accession of George 
I. and the entrance of England upon the stage of European 
politics. “From the age of the Plantagenets to the age of 
the Revolution the country had stood apart from more than 
passing contact with the fortunes of the Continent.” Thence¬ 
forth, however, England was destined to play an important 
part, and ultimately a dominating part, in the drama of Conti¬ 
nental politics. For the first time she was to exercise an intel¬ 
lectual and moral influence upon the European world. The 
world heard of Shakespeare and learned that there was an 
English literature. The study of English institutions became 
an inspiration to Montesquieu. English science and English 
philosophy furnished a starting point for Buffon and Rousseau. 

In our own country the dawn of the century saw our 
national Constitution in operation after only a decade of trial. 
The policy of the infant nation, like the policy of her mother 
before her, was at first a policy of isolation from the distant 
world. The ears of the people were still echoing with Wash¬ 
ington’s solemn warning to beware of entangling foreign alli¬ 
ances. This is the warning that has dominated our policy for 
the century that has been the century of the childhood of our 


3 


nation. Born, as the nation was, in a time of suffering and 
struggle, the war of 1812 was, as it were, a parental difficulty : 
a struggle between the parent and the child that had already 
passed beyond its control. The Mexican War was an inci¬ 
dent of national growth and stood for the attainment of that 
territorial stature which was indispensable to symmetrical 
national development. Finally, the Civil War came upon us 
and threatened our very life, as if it were a terrible illness over¬ 
taking one about to attain his full maturity. To-day we 
find our nation full grown, and there are signs that we are 
going forth, as England did two hundred years ago, to do our 
work among the nations of the world. To beware of the 
entanglements incident to foreign alliances was just such wise 
counsel as one would expect from the Father of his Country 
in speaking to the nation in its childhood. We may choose 
acquaintances for our children and keep them from contact 
with influences which seem to us to threaten harm. It can no 
longer be so when they have grown to man’s estate. The 
time must come when our admonitions cease to bind them, 
when it is no longer possible or even expedient to attempt to 
control their free development. Nations, like individuals, have 
work to do in their day and generation. Like individuals, 
they must make the world better for having lived in it. There 
is such a thing as national character and it must be developed 
as individual character is developed. In all phases of life the 
law of growth is a law of progress through struggle : in the 
physical world, the moral world, the social world. No prog¬ 
ress can be true progress unless it costs. There is, therefore, 
something childlike in the simplicity of those who are sur¬ 
prised to find that the universal law still holds and that the 
step from Spanish barbarism to English civilization can be 
taken only at the price of blood. There are those amongst 
us who suppose that a dynasty can be made to die without 
a struggle—that Spain might peaceably have been persuaded to 
commit suicide ; that one of the proudest and least enlightened 
nations could have been made to humble itself under the 
influence of pure reason. What is there in our experience to 


4 


warrant such a belief? Children continue to be born in pain. 
Character is still sanctified only by suffering. Society is purified 
only by the operation of forces which, for the nonce, seem 
destined to overthrow it. Our nation has suddenly awakened, 
we know not why or how, to a sense of her duty to civilization. 
The occasion of the awakening may have been the sufferings 
of the reconcentrados or it may have been the destruction of 
the Maine. It is often a sudden shock which brings us to our¬ 
selves. Certainly the awakening has come. It may be 
demonstrable that to do this duty will hurt our commerce, that 
it will paralyze business, that it will cost time, money, suffer¬ 
ing. Nevertheless the country has made up its mind to act, 
and it is in the light of this determination that Spain may 
read her doom. We cannot count the cost. We have already 
passed, perhaps, through the period of excitement. The 
strain and weariness have begun to affect us. Could each of 
the secrets of Time have been disclosed to us in advance 
probably the country would have hung back from the enter¬ 
prise upon which we are now embarked. This is always true 
of great undertakings. It is well for the world that it is so. 
It is enough for us to know that the step has been taken and 
that the work has been begun. Once begun, we shall carry it 
through to a glorious end. 

Not only are we unable at this time to count the cost of 
the war, but we cannot foresee its consequences. Certain 
things we may feel sure are predetermined. Spain in 
the end must lose her colonies. The people of the United 
States will perceive within themselves the growth of a new 
national spirit. They will learn to hate the cancer-spots upon 
our political system. They will learn by experience that only 
those departments of the government that are administered 
upon a civil-service basis of merit can stand the test of a great 
crisis; that effective work cannot be done with fiat currency 
or fiat military officials ; that it takes more than a mint mark 
to make a dollar and more than a commission to make a 
major-general. We shall find ourselves embarked on a new era 
of national life. We shall be compelled to solve new problems, 


5 


economic, diplomatic, constitutional. We can perceive already 
what some of them will be. All of them are full of entrancing 
interest. I invite your attention for a few minutes to one of 
them—a problem of constitutional development How will our 
national Constitution stand the strain to which it will be sub¬ 
jected by the changed conditions of national existence ? Such 
a question sounds strangely in our ears. We love to think of 
our Constitution as immortal. It has withstood the rude 
shocks of its early years. It has witnessed, unmoved, the era 
of foreign and domestic strife. The period of reconstruction 
left it unshaken. It has survived many a great financial crisis. 
Compare its majestic stability with the fleeting life of the 
constitutions of France. Our Constitution has stood unchanged 
throughout an era during which the unwritten constitution of 
England has been transformed. “ How will it stand the strain ? 
You reply, “It will never feel the strain. It will stand unmoved 
and immovable as the everlasting hills.” I trust that you are 
right. I believe that you are. At the same time I fancy that I 
can discern in our constitutional development tendencies that are 
fraught with danger to the Republic. Perhaps at such a time 
as this it is permissible to substitute for frantic boasts an earnest 
and dispassionate review of the situation in which we find 
ourselves. 

Consider for a moment the significant contrast between 
the English constitution and our own. We all know, in a gen¬ 
eral way, that in England the executive power is vested in the 
Crown, the judicial power in the courts of the realm, including 
the House of Lords, and the legislative power in Parliament. To 
some of us the conception is familiar that the power of Parlia¬ 
ment is supreme. Some of us, not many, realize that while 
the sovereign is by no means a figure-head, far less constitu¬ 
tional power is vested in the crown than in the President of the 
United States. The real power among our English brethren 
is the majority in the House of Commons, whose leader for 
the time being is premier. With us the President wields the 
whole military and a large share of the civil power of the 
nation. His veto may control legislation and at times it rests 


6 


with him to determine whether we shall have war or peace. 
In dispensing the enormous patronage which in accordance 
with our political system he controls, he exercises (as has been 
well said) “ functions which are more truly regal than those of 
an English monarch.” “ Elect such a magistrate for life, or 
give him a permanent hold on office, and he may be termed 
Mr. President but will be every inch a king.” Again, still 
fewer realize that Parliament has power to pass all laws, with 
no other limit than that set by the reason and judgment of the 
Lords and Commons. Parliament may supersede the courts 
of justice by a commission acting under martial law and may 
“ arrogate to itself the trial of any cause that it does not desire 
to leave to the ordinary tribunals.” The courts have no juris¬ 
diction to declare acts of Parliament unconstitutional. Why, 
then, may it not be said that Parliament is despotic? In what 
sense is England under the sway of a constitutional govern¬ 
ment ? I reply that for ages the Parliament has proceeded 
according to rules and precedents which are deeply rooted 
in the minds and hearts of all Englishmen, and there is no 
subject of the Queen who is in danger of being deprived of 
life or liberty or property except in accordance with that due 
course of law prescribed by Magna Charta. In a real sense, 
therefore, it may be said that Parliament cannot run athwart 
the traditional liberties of Englishmen. We, the people of 

the United States, on the other hand, have embodied in 

a written constitution the declaration of principles in 

accordance with which it has been our will to 
live. In England, when a measure is proposed in 

Parliament, n<? question of legislative power need be con¬ 
sidered. The only inquiry is: “ Is the measure consistent 
with principle and such as the circumstances demand?” With 
us the question must be : “ Is the measure expedient and, if it 
is, is it consistent with the provisions of our Constitution ?” No 
matter how great the expediency of an act may be, it is of none 
effect if it transgresses the limitations set by our fundamental 
law. As is well known, it is the peculiar function of the 
American judiciary to determine whether or not an act of 


7 


Congress or of a state legislature is constitutional. The exercise 
of this vast power may be regarded as essential to the concep¬ 
tion of a written constitution. The supremacy of the judiciary 
over the legislature has been our boast. It is a feature of our 
constitutional system which has excited the admiration of for¬ 
eigners. Our Constitution, as interpreted and developed by 
the Supreme Court of the United States, has proved to be the 
bulwark of our liberty. By a use of the judicial power that 
may well be regarded as inspired, Marshall (after Washington 
the greatest of Americans') found it possible to make of us a 
nation. By a wise exercise of the same power, Miller and 
Bradley, worthy successors of the great Chief Justice, have 
removed the barriers interposed by states to check the even 
flow of national commerce. Perhaps I cannot do better than 
describe this feature of our American system in the lan¬ 
guage of Mr. Justice Harlan in a recent case: “ The duty 
rests upon all courts, Federal and State, when their jurisdic¬ 
tion is properly invoked, to see to it that no right secured by 
the supreme law of the land is impaired or destroyed by legis¬ 
lation. This function and duty of the judiciary distinguishes 
the American system from all other systems of government. 
The perpetuity of our institutions and the liberty which is 
enjoyed under them depend, in no small degree, upon the 
power given the judiciary to declare null and void all legisla¬ 
tion that is clearly repugnant to the supreme law of the land.” 
But look at it, my friends. Think for a minute of the tremen¬ 
dous possibilities of evil which lurk in this vast power. As 
each decision is rendered on a constitutional point the decision 
passes into the Constitution, and becomes a part of it. We 
expect of the Supreme Court the same stability of decision 
that we expect in the case of the Constitution itself. If the 
Court declares an act unconstitutional we should think 
it a sign of weakness if the declaration were not to endure 
for all time. Yet the question may relate to some great 
power of government which the nation has undertaken 
to wield. Take, for example, the legislation by which 
Congress, after the Civil War, sought to make greenbacks 


8 


legal tender for payment of debts. An enormous responsi¬ 
bility rested on the Supreme Court of the United States. 
To declare the measure unconstitutional would hamper the 
nation forever and would leave it powerless to exercise one 
of the great attributes of sovereignty. Nevertheless, the Court 
had the courage of conviction and declared, by a majority 
vote, that to make paper dollars a legal tender was unconsti¬ 
tutional. But mark that the decision laid a constitutional pro¬ 
hibition upon the exercise of the national will. The spectacle 
was presented of a sovereign people checked in the accomplish¬ 
ment of its purpose by an agency of its own creation. The 
result was inevitable. The legal tender acts were reconsidered 
and their validity was affirmed by a divided court. Observe 
that I am not discussing the merits of the question, either as a 
point of constitutional law or of finance. I am merely calling 
your attention to the way in which, at a critical period of the 
nation’s history, it was found impossible to sustain an exercise 
of the judicial power in opposition to the will of a great 
majority. Take again such an important question of national 
policy as the Income Tax. A majority in Congress decided 
in favor of a form of taxation which the experience of sister 
countries justifies us in adopting. The Supreme Court was 
called upon to determine the validity of the act and the decision, 
subject to certain limitations, was in favor of its constitutionality. 
The Court was divided, however, and this time the public senti¬ 
ment, which charges the atmosphere breathed even by the great¬ 
est and purest judges in the world, was adverse to the law, and a 
reconsideration of the decision resulted in a declaration that the 
law as a whole was unconstitutional. This decision is more dan¬ 
gerous than the decision in the Legal Tender Cases. There it 
was ultimately decided that the nation might wield a sovereign 
power. Here it is made to appear that the nation stands 
stripped of a power—or is at least hopelessly hampered in the 
exercise of a power—which may become essential in view of the 
enterprise on which we are embarked. Before the present war 
has become a thing of the past, the Supreme Court may find it 
necessary to overrule itself or else take refuge in an attempt ta 


9 


draw a distinction, economic rather than constitutional, between 
the act which it has already condemned and another tax law 
of the same kind which must sooner or later come before it. 
Again observe that I am not discussing the merits of the 
question, although I am of the opinion that an income tax is a 
most desirable form of taxation and that the decision-of the 
Supreme Court was erroneous. The point is that the Court 
has construed the Constitution as declaring that the nation may 
not exercise a power which may yet be found indispensable. 
If the Court is wrong, the correction of the error will have 
unfortunate results. If the Court is right, the Constitution is at 
fault and an amendment to it, except in the face of some 
extraordinary emergency, is under our system a practical 
impossibility. 

Turn to a different field. Consider for a moment the 
recent decision in Smyth vs. Ames, better known as the 
Nebraska Freight Rate Case. Nebraska had passed an act 
regulating the rates to be charged by carriers for the transpor¬ 
tation of property and persons within the State. The Court, 
adhering to the view that the reasonableness of a rate is a judi¬ 
cial question, decides that the reasonableness of such regula¬ 
tions depends upon whether they give a fair return to the rail¬ 
way companies inside the state and must be determined with¬ 
out reference to business of an interstate character. A railway 
company cannot be compelled to do Nebraska business at 
unprofitable figures on the ground that its lines in another 
state are so profitable that the company as a whole will make 
money. A railway expert has pointed out, since the decision, 
that in thirty-eight States of the Union governmental restric¬ 
tions would be unconstitutional under existing conditions. In 
other words, the legislatures in all but eight of our states 
now find themselves unable to exercise a governmental power 
to which carriers at the common law have been subject from 
time immemorial. It is surely a significant thing that upon a 
court of justice has been thrust the decision of three great 
problems which are in their nature problems of currency, of 
finance and of commercial control. It is also significant that 


io 


while a generation ago the decision of a doubtful question fell, 
under the pressure of the moment, on the side of the consti¬ 
tutionality of the measure before the Court, the decision of the 
problems of to-day is a decision that the acts in question are 
unconstitutional. An examination of the decisions of federal 
and state courts shows an increasing number of cases in which 
questions of constitutionality are discussed and an increasing 
number of decisions to the effect that acts of legislature are 
unconstitutional. Our constitutional law is fast taking on the 
aspect of a general system of restriction and prohibition as 
respects the exercise of the legislative will. This is an indica¬ 
tion that our constitutional law is in danger of growing more 
and more rigid while the English Constitution retains its 
flexibility. Our judges are broadening their jurisdiction. 
They are using their power more and more. The result is an 
increase in the measure of the responsibility of the courts and 
a consequent diminution in the measure of the responsibility 
of the legislatures. The outcome is what might have been 
anticipated. Close observers of the work done by our 
legislators, both in Congress and in the legislatures of the 
of the states, report an increasing tendency towards the 
passage of ill-considered and crude legislation and they note 
the half apologetic remark that “ If the act is unconstitutional 
the courts will correct it.” When an act passed under these 
circumstances comes before the courts it is apt to be so 
imperfect in its structure and so full of possibilities of evil, 
that the bench and the bar are eager to search the four 
corners of the Constitution, and even to look beyond them, 
in a determined effort to protect the people from the conse¬ 
quences of unwise legislative action. The greater the 
responsibility accepted by the courts the more unworthy of con¬ 
fidence our legislators become. They no longer feel them¬ 
selves to be the ultimate custodians of the liberties of the 
people. They assume that the declaration of the unconstitu¬ 
tionality of an act redresses all wrongs and makes dangerous 
consequences impossible. That such a declaration by a court 
is a declaration which is of present advantage to the community 


11 


no one can deny. We are apt to forget, however, that every 
such decision becomes a part of our constitutional law, and 
that while it is a means of averting a present evil it may prove 
itself a source of serious trouble in the future. It may be a 
good thing to protect those who control great municipal fran¬ 
chises from unconscionable legislation by state legislatures, by 
municipal councils and by boards of aldermen. It may be a 
very serious thing to find ourselves hampered by a long line 
of decisions rendered to vindicate such rights when the time 
comes for our municipalities to follow the example of the 
municipalities of the old world and place in the hands of the 
people the control and exercise of these protected franchises. 
It may be a good thing to kill an ill-conceived and slovenly 
alien tax bill or direct inheritance law. It may be a very 
dangerous thing to strip the state of the power to enact 
properly drafted laws of this character. When the legisla¬ 
ture of Pennsylvania passed an act relating to admissions 
to the bar which was so ill-considered that a would-be 
attorney threatened to intrude himself upon a court before 
which he was not qualified to practice, the Supreme Court did 
the community a service in frustrating his reprehensible 
attempt. It is unfortunate, however, that the Court found it 
necessary to make a general declaration that acts regulating 
the admission of attorneys are unconstitutional usurpations of 
the rights of the judiciary, for such a declaration, if adhered to, 
will make it impossible for Pennsylvania to accomplish the 
salutary educational reforms which have been set on foot in some 
other states. In such cases as these the courts break the force 
of the blow which our own representatives level at us, and as we 
seldom feel the blow’s full force we do not rise to that pitch of 
indignation which now and then moves a community to turn 
away unworthy representatives from its service and substitute 
legislators more faithful to their trust. 

Another result of the tendency which I have been con¬ 
sidering has been the growth of the sentiment that a consti¬ 
tutional provision is a panacea for all ills. Because our legis¬ 
latures abused their powers, it was assumed in many quarters 


that special legislation should be made unconstitutional. 
Accordingly, when in Pennsylvania we framed our Constitu¬ 
tion of 1874, we inserted a general prohibition against local 
and special legislation. When we found that the legislature 
could not do its work.in the face of such a prohibition it 
became necessary to resort to the device of arranging the 
objects of legislation into classes in order to legislate generally 
for each special class. We are now struggling to place some 
limitation upon the right to subdivide into classes, but the 
struggle will doubtless end in the nullification of the artificial 
constitutional restriction. The Pennsylvania Constitution of 
1874 contains another instance of the tendency to crystallize 
contemporary economic conceptions by making them part of 
the fundamental law. I refer to the prohibition of consolida¬ 
tion as between two parallel and competing railroad lines. It 
needs but little reflection to satisfy one that it is a shortsighted 
policy to commit a great and growing community to the 
declaration that cut-throat competition between parallel lines 
of railroad is always and under all circumstances a good thing 
for the public. 

What does all this mean ? It means that those, on or off the 
bench, who have been influential in moulding public opinion, 
have hitherto failed to grasp the full significance of a great 
national development and growth, together with the accom¬ 
panying changes in social and economic conditions. We have, 
as a nation, supposed that present conditions are eternal; that 
existing economic conceptions are unchangeable, and that by 
crystallizing them under the protection of a constitution we can 
check all onslaught upon them. Fatal mistake! What is a 
constitution that it should be so interpreted as to fetter a 
nation’s growth ? Suppose all the people say “We will have 
an income tax, and have it at once.” It is like the legal-tender 
question. The constitutional restraint imposed by judicial 
decision would quickly melt away. If not all the people, but 
a great majority were to raise this cry, the effect ultimately 
would be the same. The Constitution is as nothing when it 
ceases to reflect the nation’s will. Do we delude ourselves by 


13 



supposing that this nation is to be held back from territorial 
acquisition by the failure of our Constitution to make expiess 
provision lor colonial government? Do we propose to meet 
the single-tax advocate by telling him that even if he convinces 
the nation, the constitutional difficulties in his way are insuper¬ 
able ? Do we fondly dream that we are giving a conclusive 
answer to the socialist when we tell him that our Constitution 
does not permit an acceptance of his theories ? Fatal miscon¬ 
ception of a constitution ! We must meet each adversaiy in 
the open and unhorse him in a fair fight—a fight fought in 
defence of the system for which the Constitution stands. We 
must not take refuge behind the Constitution for the sake of 
avoiding the fight. The Constitution needs our protection. 
Its function is not, primarily, to protect us. It follows that we 
must not incorporate into the constitution of nation or state, 
either by direct enactment or by judicial decision, principles of 
restraint and restriction which will precipitate conflicts between 
constitutional law and inevitable national development. If we 
read the signs of the times they point us to the coming of new 
things under the sun—things new for this nation but familiar 
to every student of national evolution. The nation has become 
great and strong. It has reached maturity. It must exert its 
full influence among the nations of the world. Yes ! Nations 
of the world. Who are we that we should longer attempt to 
maintain an imaginary line between so-called Eastern and 
Western Hemispheres ? Is it not our glorious privilege, as we 
penetrate further into the secrets of the universe, to triumph 
over the limitations of space and time, causing the ends 
of the world to meet and time past and time future to 
merge in time present? I believe that there was once a North 
and a South in this country, with a line somewhere between 
them. The line has vanished. Some would tell us of an 
East and a West; but the thing is clearly impossible. This is 
a nation, instinct with life—a people with a will to be one. 
In this we may find the strength of our Constitution. Let us 
beware that we do not so develop it as to bring it athwart the 
stream of national progress. 


14 


You say to me, “ This is all very well, but while you 
have pointed out many possible dangers, you have made no 
practical suggestions in regard to the means of guarding 
against them.” My only reply can be that the nature of the 
case is such that the recognition of the danger is itself the 
most effective precaution. If educated people who, like your¬ 
selves, are in a position to influence public opinion, will lay 
firm hold upon the conception of national evolution and 
the futility of multiplying constitutional restrictions upon 
the exercise of powers characteristic of sovereignty, they 
will be doing to their country a service of which it 
stands in great need. We must resolutely oppose the views 
of the many loyal citizens who conceive of social and economic 
conditions as static, who seek to solve all problems by the 
waning light of that political economy which was in the ascend¬ 
ant at our nation’s birth. We must set ourselves against the 
position of those who ascribe such inevitable issues as the 
present war to the plots and machinations of corrupt politicians. 
Such people so little appreciate the resistless momentum of a 
nation that has been aroused to action that they imagine it to 
rest in the power of individuals to avert a coming war, and 
they even criticize the President in the present crisis for not 
having arrested the headlong rush of waters to the sea. They 
fail to perceive that the so-called “ concessions ” made by 
Spain at the eleventh hour were wrung from her only by her 
realization that the people of the United States were at last 
awake—that they had risen to the height of a determination 
to act—and were descending with resistless might to the 
destruction of her barbarous and. despotic sway. It was the 
sight of this national rising and impending descent that caused 
Spain to offer concessions ; and the fact that the descent had 
already begun made the concessions worthless as having 
come too late. Withhold a message ? Modify a recommen¬ 
dation ? Advise the nation to pause ? As well might our 
friends beseech the smith to stay the ponderous hammer in its 
decent upon the glowing metal, as to attempt to avert the 
breaking of a storm that has been gathering for more than 


i5 


half a century! Fellow citizens, we must see the present in 
relation to the past if we would scan the future. We must 
accustom our eyes to the onward movement of institutions 
and national conditions. We must realize that we cannot keep 
our dear country always in its childhood and within the realms 
of quiet retirement from the world. It was a sad day for 
yEthra when the young Theseus grew strong enough to move 
the stone beneath which his father’s sword lay buried and 
seized that sword in a sudden impulse to do such deeds as had 
made his father renowned. A sad day and yet a happy day , 
for the mother knew that a selfish life is a wasted life and that 
a man who does not impress himself upon his day and genera¬ 
tion misses the mark that is set for his attaining. Let me say 
again that what is true of individuals is true of nations. II 
we love our country, if we believe in our institutions and oui 
civilization, we cannot but rejoice that an opportunity has come 
to shed our light abroad. This has been the mission of Eng¬ 
land, our Mother Country. It may well be our destiny to 
carry on the work of subjecting the world to the sway of 
Anglo-Saxon civilization ; even as the young Greek took his 
father’s sandals and his father’s sword and caught something 
of his father’s inspiration. We talk of an Anglo-Saxon alli¬ 
ance, as if that were a matter of contract-making. With the 
same blood in our veins—with the same charter of sacied 
liberties—with a common instinct for impressing our institu¬ 
tions upon other peoples—such an alliance is ours already , the 
compact is registered in our hearts. 

If I have suggested any thoughts to you to-day, let this 
be one of them—that the world will be better when this war 
shall have been fought. It will be the glorious privilege ot 
this nation to have inaugurated a new era of human progress. 
This is a matchless task ; but to do our work thoroughly and 
well we must do it with all our might. Our nation in this 
crisis and in every crisis of the future must needs be armed 
with all the great powers of sovereignty. Our courts must, 
therefore, curb their newly developed tendency to fetter gov¬ 
ernmental action by constitutional restraints. 

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